Snoonu invests in HASIF to digitise SME accounting in Qatar

Published: 2026-05-13T10:33:33.000Z

Snoonu has backed HASIF a Qatari AI-powered accounting startup through its Startup Factory initiative. It is the program's second investment following Sufra AI and signals Snoonu's shift from platform operator to active ecosystem builder.

Snoonu built its name in Qatar as a food delivery and super app platform. Now it is building something else entirely. The company's investment in HASIF, a Qatari AI-powered accounting and financial compliance startup, marks its second deal under the Snoonu Startup Factory initiative and signals that the company is serious about transitioning from a technology operator into an active ecosystem builder and early-stage investor in Qatar's startup landscape. HASIF was founded by Qatar University graduates Noof Alhbabi, Maryam Eisa, and Dana Alwadaani, making it one of the few startups in the Gulf's fintech space with an all-female founding team emerging directly from a local university. The platform is designed to simplify accounting, financial reporting, and compliance workflows for small and medium-sized businesses, a category of tools that the Gulf's SME sector has historically been underserved in despite the growing pressure on businesses to digitize their financial operations. The investment amount has not been disclosed, but the deal was announced in the days following Snoonu's Startup Factory competition and showcase event, where early-stage startups presented solutions to key business and market challenges. HASIF emerged from that process as the program's second backed company, following Snoonu's initial $100,000 pre-seed investment in Sufra AI, a restaurant technology startup, when the Startup Factory launched in April 2026. The problem HASIF is addressing is well-understood by anyone who has tried to run a small business in the Gulf. Accounting software that exists in the market is often designed for larger enterprises with dedicated finance teams, or it is internationally built without the localization required for Arabic-language compliance, VAT filing nuances, or the specific regulatory frameworks that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE each operate under. SMEs that cannot afford an in-house accountant end up either using generic tools poorly or outsourcing at a cost that eats into already thin margins. An AI-powered platform built specifically for the Gulf SME context, by founders who understand it from the inside, addresses a gap that is both commercially real and meaningfully large. Snoonu's decision to back HASIF through its Startup Factory rather than through a conventional investment vehicle is worth examining. The initiative is explicitly designed to offer more than capital, providing mentorship, operational expertise, and direct access to market opportunities within Snoonu's existing ecosystem. For a fintech startup targeting SMEs, access to a platform with Snoonu's merchant and business network in Qatar is a distribution asset that could accelerate adoption considerably faster than a standalone go-to-market effort. That combination of funding, mentorship, and market access is what separates a venture studio model from a passive early-stage investment, and Snoonu appears to be building toward the former. For Qatar's startup ecosystem, the HASIF investment fits within a broader pattern of institutional and corporate support for early-stage founders that has been accelerating under Qatar National Vision 2030. Institutions including Qatar Science and Technology Park, Qatar Business Incubation Center, and Qatar Fintech Hub have been building the infrastructure for startup development across the country, and the Snoonu Startup Factory now adds a corporate venture layer to that support stack. The emergence of SME-focused fintech infrastructure companies like HASIF in Qatar also reflects a regional trend playing out across the GCC, where the combination of rising VAT implementation, evolving compliance requirements, and growing digital adoption among small businesses is creating genuine demand for tools that were not commercially viable to build just a few years ago. Qatar's own SME digitization agenda, backed by government programs and private sector partnerships, gives HASIF a reasonably clear early path to institutional and commercial adoption if the product delivers what it promises.